Communication Strategy That Works

Webinars and live events allow you to make a personal connection with your audience. Whether you're trying to reach existing customers about a product or service or build up your brand awareness, these online platforms can be a great way to get your message in front of the right people.

Live webinars and events allow you to speak directly to people and respond to their questions. This format provides the opportunity to build a personal connection with an audience, which is vital in today's age of impersonal marketing.

Today I share how to utilise this for your B2B content, talk a bit about my experience of LinkedIn Lives as a platform for doing this in B2B, and look at some of how you can use pre-recorded content.

Let's dive in!

Links mentioned in today's episode:

How to reach your audience online with Hybrid events 'Deep Dive'

It's A B2B Comms Thing youtube channel

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Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business

Listen to more episodes, take some training, or download a resource : Find out more here.

Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. You can also work with me 1:1 as a trainer and mentor [email protected]

Work with me closely

If you'd like to work with me to develop and implement your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

Leave me a voicemail on my Speakpipe page I would love to hear your feedback in this episode and thoughts on any topics I could include in future ones too.

ESG reporting is emerging as the most effective way for companies to build a positive reputation. This potentially means that PR and comms professionals are now being asked to become experts in environmental policy and other fields.

While this may sound like a huge challenge, it actually opens up a wealth of new opportunities for PR and comms pros in smaller businesses.

I haven't worked in the corporate world for some time, so I wanted to find out more on this topic, particularly how it relates to diversity and inclusion, not just the external factors that a company's operations may entail.

So today, I explore what this new lens through which reputations are being managed and judged means for PRs and reputation management and help PRs and comms pros in smaller businesses be aware of how this could affect day to day campaign planning.

Let's dive in!

Links mentioned in this episode: Grab my 'No tissues' reputation issues management guide

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business

Listen to more episodes, take some training, or download a resource : Find out more here.

Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. You can also work with me 1:1 as a trainer and mentor [email protected]

Work with me closely

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

Leave me a voicemail on my Speakpipe page I would love to hear your feedback in this episode and thoughts on any topics I could include in future ones too.

Trade shows are not just about turning up and networking, they are an essential part of any B2B strategy. There are so many touchpoints where you can have a 'moment' at trade shows, however big or small. So today I cover how to create the right strategy for you.

Why? Because we are all time-poor, so as marketing and comms pros and business leaders we need to make sure that the time spent away from 'the office' is worthwhile.

If you're hosting a stand and/or speaking or both, this is true.

This was the subject of the latest It's B2B Comms Thing Live over on LinkedIn - so I also cover some of my co-hosts' insights as well Ayo Abbas and Stacey Meadwell. You can watch the replay of that podcast HERE

I will cover;

• What actions should you take now before your trade show?
• What's the most important activities to prioritise during the event itself?
• Mopping-up – most important tasks post-event

Let's dive in!

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business

Listen to more episodes, take some training, or download a resource : Find out more here.

Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. You can also work with me 1:1 as a trainer and mentor [email protected]

Work with me closely

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

Leave me a voicemail on my Speakpipe page I would love to hear your feedback in this episode and thoughts on any topics I could include in future ones too.

Newsjacking can be one of the most effective ways to get your message in front of the right people without having to invest a lot of money. It has been used by brands, politicians, and even charities to make a big impact. The premise being that you don't need to be the news—you just need to be related to it. It is a term that refers to the process of using current news to generate interest, including media interest, and reach a wide audience. In this episode, I'll share some of the tips and tricks you can use to undertake newsjacking and some examples of newsjacking campaigns from other organisations so you can get an idea of the impact that this form of public relations can have. Keep in mind that newsjacking should be a strategic part of your overall public relations plan, not a standalone tactic you use when the timing is right.

Let's dive in!

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business

Listen to more episodes, take some training, or download a resource : Find out more here.

Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. You can also work with me 1:1 as a trainer and mentor [email protected]

Work with me closely

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

Leave me a voicemail on my Speakpipe page

I wanted to do something a little different this week to mark International Women's day so at the end of the podcast I feature some women's voices sharing their experiences. Thank you so much to Stacey, Jo and Abi who shared their stories with me. I feel honoured.

International Women's Day this year was all about breaking the bias which is a campaign to change how people think about and act toward women by celebrating women's achievements and galvinishg strength and support from men and women around unconscious and conscious bias against women. Women in the workplace, in our communities and in sport.

It's a good example of a behaviour change campaign so I thought I'd cover behaviour change today I have been so inspired by today's topic, and it is such a big one, that I am planning a 'deep dive' episode with an expert later in Spring so look out for that one.

I also dedicate this episode to my daughter. A woman in the making, champion swimmer, resilient, studious and kind. She is already tackling bias in sport. Fingers crossed her workplace experiences will be different.

Love you Bea x

Let's dive in!

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business

Listen to more episodes, take some training, or download a resource : Find out more here.

Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. You can also work with me 1:1 as a trainer and mentor [email protected]

Work with me closely in my Communication Strategy Lab

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

On World Book Day I thought I'd focus on how business books can be a rich source of content worth investing in. Books have the ability to captivate our imagination. They can transport us to another place and time. They can change our view on something entirely. This is why so many authors turn to books as a way of conveying their message.

World Book Day was created by Unesco in April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. It's marked in more than 100 countries around the globe.

The day aims to promote reading for pleasure while offering "every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own.

But as well as children reading and enjoying reading, over the years, books have been used by businesses and organizations as a means of storytelling. The advantages of using books as part of a content strategy are numerous.

So today I cover my own personal reflections and share 3 ways I have used business books for my business, my personal PR and my clients.

So let's dive in!

Links in this episode

About World Book Day

Shaping Future Places case study

Shaping Future Places initiative

Promoting Property and Insight

How to use Audio in your B2B Strategy

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business

Listen to more episodes, download a resource or enrol in a mini-course: Find out more here.

Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. [email protected]

Work with me closely in my Communication Strategy Lab

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

Steven Bartlett inspires this week's podcast. And it's all about personal PR. This phrase resonated with me, so I wanted to share my thoughts with you on this subject.

You can have the best communication strategy, but you reach no one with your message if no one is listening.

I learned the hard way. I was young, ambitious, and didn't have many great role models when I started work. Women role models were dominant boardroom archetypes, or I had male role models. I realised that I needed to create an excellent profile to get on in life. But building credibility in your job is hard.

If you work in-house, you need credibility to be heard to get your point across in meetings. If you are running a small business, you also need to do these two things. Personal credibility is the difference between getting referred for work or not as a freelance consultant. So these are hugely overlooked components of creating an effective strategy for your business.

I decided for me this podcast has three parts;

• Staff as your biggest ambassadors
• Building personal credibility
• How credibility can help you build external brand ambassadors

Let's dive in!

Links mentioned in the episode today;

Steven Barlett's LinkedIn post

HR Director article / research

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business

Explore how I can help you, there are 3 main ways you can do this:

1. Listen to more episodes, download a resource or enrol in a mini-course: Find out more here.

2. Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. [email protected]

​3. Work with me closely in my Communication Strategy Lab

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

I recently missed out on attending 'it's a B2B Thing' over on LinkedIn with Stacey Meadwell and Ayo Abbas where, along with special guest Susie Lober, they talked all about repurposing content. So I thought I would re-release this episode all about why I think long-form content is your best friend right now and why it can help hugely with repurposing, and also tell you where you can catch up on it's a B2B Comms Thing podcast too.

I am going to cover today;

• What long-form content is
• How it helps you gain authority

We do It's a B2B Comms Thing live on the first Friday of every month, over on LinkedIn, then you can watch the podcast afterwards. Just follow me on LinkedIn to get a notification and sign up to watch the next one on 1st March.

Let's dive in!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Watch the B2B Comms Thing Podcast

Follow me on LinkedIn

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business (also here: https://bit.ly/SevenSteps2Success )

Want to explore how I can help you? there are 3 main ways you can do this:

1. Listen to more episodes, download a resource or enrol in a mini-course: Find out more here.

2. Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. [email protected]

​3. Work with me closely in my Communication Strategy Lab

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

PR can help the sales process along through the 'know, like, trust' aspect of the customer journey with you.

The more someone hears about your business and the better informed they are, the warmer they are as a potential lead. In plain terms, this means your customer is closer to working with you or buying from you than they were when they first heard of you. Customers have to travel along the 'know, like, trust' pathway with you to know your products, like them, and work out if they will work for them. They also need to trust you so they will choose you over the other options that might be available out there.

Using PR this way can influence your lead generation and become an essential cog in your sales wheel.

Now I say this is for B2B, but it can easily translate into B2C it's just B2B is my genius zone, so I am focussing here today.

Let's dive in!

Liked Listening today? What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business (also here: https://bit.ly/SevenSteps2Success )

Want to explore how i can help you? there's 3 main ways you can do this:

1. Listen to more episodes, download a resource or enrol in a mini course: Find out more here.

2. Hire my expertise, whether that's support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. [email protected]

​3. Work with me closely in my Communication Strategy Lab

If you'd like to work with me in a group of like-minded peers to develop your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks and lots of accountability and up-skilling, testing and learning as we go? then email me [email protected] to register your interest for you or your entire team.

When was the last time you updated your about page on your website? This week, which is National Storytelling Week, is an excellent opportunity to think about how to incorporate storytelling into your business strategy.

Storytelling is an essential part of modern business strategy. The human brain processes stories much deeper than facts and figures, making them a powerful tool for communicating complex ideas and building customer trust.

The businesses winning right now are using storytelling to build their brand reputations to provide helpful information and build a human connection with their customers.

Today I share how you can restart your about page during National Storytelling Week by sharing some tips and insights and examples of how it's well-executed in B2B.

Let's dive in!

Resources and links from this episode:

https://henbe.co.uk/2021/06/10/ep-27-telling-your-story-when-you-work-in-a-technical-industry/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/storytelling

https://extance.co.uk/

My consulting business About page

https://henbe.co.uk/about-henbe/

What to do next:

Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business (also here: https://bit.ly/SevenSteps2Success )

And,

Follow me on LinkedIn

Full Transcript (unedited):

When was the last time you updated your about page on your website? This week, which is National Storytelling Week, is a great opportunity to think about how to incorporate storytelling into your business strategy.

Storytelling is an essential part of modern business strategy. The human brain processes stories in a much deeper way than facts and figures, making them a powerful tool for communicating complex ideas and building customer trust. The best businesses are using storytelling to build their brand reputations, not only to provide helpful information but also to build a human connection with their customers.

Today I share how you can restart your about page during National Storytelling Week by sharing some tips and insights and also some examples of how it's well-executed in B2B.

Let's dive in

Intro

People often think of storytelling as a way to capture the attention of an audience, but the benefits of storytelling go far beyond the punchline.

It's a proven method for humanizing your brand and establishing a trustworthy reputation that makes customers feel good about doing business with you. When you tell a story, your customers can feel like they know you better, and that makes them more comfortable in doing business with you. That's why it's so important to use storytelling in your business.

We like to think that storytelling has been with us since time began, but the truth is that it has evolved and changed over time. In many ways, today's modern style of storytelling is a far cry from the way tales were told by our ancestors. For example, our oral traditions and the art of storytelling have evolved significantly since the days when storytellers would weave tales around campfires. Today, we tend to be far more concerned with the content of our storytelling, rather than the style and delivery.

And for good reason.

We've all heard the saying, "Don't tell me the facts, tell me a story." Today, we're surrounded by facts and figures, data and statistics – but these aren't the best way to communicate complex ideas and help people understand the world around them. In fact, storytelling is one of the most powerful tools to help people understand the world and the people and places within it, and to build a sense of trust and rapport with your brand and customers.

But when it comes to building a brand reputation, most business owners focus on the big, flashy marketing campaigns. But there's a whole world of communication out there that doesn't require a single dollar. It's called storytelling. The beauty of storytelling is that it's an opportunity to connect with your customers on a deeper level.

However, stuffy copywriting often cripples B2B brands in particular and they seem remote and impersonal, too corporate.

When looking to learn more about a company, we often head straight to the "About" page.

A good About page should contain the following information:

• The story of how you got started and why the business exists in the first place
• Your company's mission, and what you want to achieve
• Information on your team, what they do and perhaps their interests
• How they can get involved and join your cause

If you have a story of why and how you started your business, then the About page is the place to share it. It humanises your brand, providing context and meaning around why it exists.

But how do you actually go about telling a story? especially if you work in B2B

Here are a few simple tips you can take to get started telling your business story, whether it's your personal story or the story of your business.

The first step is to set a clear, actionable goal. What do you want your business to look like in the future? What do you want your customers to think of you?

Next ask yourself why you think your customers care about your story?

This helps to develop the right story and one that your customers will want to hear

Be open and honest about the story you want to tell.

What do you hope to communicate to your customers? Do you believe your story reflects the real you? Are you proud of your company, its products and services?

Make sure your story is true.

Don't embellish, or just make it up. Make sure it's relatable to your customers and that it feels real and authentic.

What's your core purpose in business?

What are your values, beliefs, and values? What are your customers values and beliefs? make sure your story rings true with all these things.

Start by telling the story as you would if you were telling a friend.

And, reiterate your story and purpose often, pepper it into what you say on social media and in your communication, its not a campaign, it should be embedded so remind customers why they should buy from you and that you have deph and meaning to your brand and why yo are on the planet.

Microsoft do this really well on a large corporate scale in B2B thier https://news.microsoft.com/stories/ StoryLabs showcase examples of how their people's skills are helping the world.

On a smaller scale UK architecture Practice Stride Treglown do a similar thing with their people stories and showcasing the people that live in the buildings they create, demonstrating a depth of understanding of end customer need and how important it is for them. I'd love to hear your example.

Case-study led examples of practising what you preach as a brand works really well. Rather than talking about yourself. Google Ads does this well too showcasing smaller businesses and how google ads have helped them become successful.

Formats are a really important tool so a mix of video and words can help communicate how you feel, and your outlook by combining some of these elements.

Finally, when we start to tell our story as a business, it's really, really easy to jump into the technical speak. We've all done it. If you work in a very technical area, you might need to explain quite a lot of the technical issues associated with your product or service.

However, to the person who's not really working in your business, including your customers, the technical aspect is not the most compelling part of your story.

Being too technical with your content can also mean that there's no really compelling reason for people to engage with that content or connect with your product, service or business, and more importantly, to take action from reading it or hearing about it.

Now there are exceptions to this of course, say you work in medical device R&D and your customers are highly informed, for example. But your story then needs to still communicate trust and track record and you need to stand out from the competition. Regardless, we need to be telling people the why behind what we do and why does it matter to them. So we need to dig a little deeper. We need to give them that thing that they really need. Why should they buy from you? Why should they invest in you? Or why should they work with you and not another company?

Find a way this week and revisit that About page. I have this week, I'd love to know what you think?